Why will most Income Support cases not yield a Treasury saving?

This is support for the assertion earlier "in most cases in future
where a lone parent is forced to use the CSA because she claims Income
Support, there will actually be no saving for the Treasury".

This is extrapolated from the statistics for the CSA's caseload. About
half of all CSA cases (not just those on Income Support) have a minimum
liability of about £5 (or even £0). A further proportion has
a liability no more than £10. Less than half have a liability of
more than £10.

If this same profile applies to the Income Support cases alone, then
less than half of Income Support cases will exceed the £10 premium.
Since about 38% of CSA cases are Income Support cases, perhaps 20% of
all CSA cases will be "required" (benefit) cases
with no saving to the taxpayer.

These Income Support "no saving" cases are potentially embarrassing:

1.

They are associated with the poorest people - lone parents &
children on Income Support, and non-resident parents who don't earn
much money.

2.

They represent "state intrusion" and "state compulsion"
at a sensitive time in people's lives, typically soon after separation
(which is when such people are poorest).

3.

Some of them will involve two reluctant parents, and these are among
the hardest CSA cases to administer.

4.

Even if the CSA manages to gather the information and calculate
the liabilities of those doubly reluctant cases, it still represents
an ongoing operating cost for which the CSA will never impose a service
change.

5.

Such cases will distract from more needy cases.

In all of these cases, of course, either parent must be able to apply
to the CSA if they want to. But the implications of forcing
them to apply are far reaching and devastating.